Colmar or Lausanne?

Neither city has a coast, but only Lausanne has anywhere real to swim. Lake Geneva warms up enough for a few summer weeks, and the lawns, piers and pebble shores at Vidy, Bellerive, Pully and Lutry, along with the old Bellerive lido, make easy afternoons.

Colmar's options are municipal pools or a small lake up in the Vosges valleys. Even in Lausanne it is lake bathing around a city stay rather than a beach vacation.

Colmar has the deeper regional table. Wood-panelled winstubs serve choucroute, baeckeoffe, tarte flambée and munster, the covered market by the Lauch is full of charcuterie and gingerbread, and Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Pinot Gris come from the slopes just outside town.

Lausanne's Vaudois cooking of lake perch, papet and fondue is good, but it is a narrower repertoire, with Lavaux Chasselas as the main highlight. It does have a stronger top tier of celebrated restaurants. In Colmar, steer clear of the tired menus on the most photographed streets.

Colmar is the stronger sightseeing town. Its painted half-timbered houses, the Maison Pfister, the Koïfhus and Petite Venise read as one intact late-medieval townscape, and Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece at the Unterlinden is worth the journey by itself.

Lausanne has fewer historic streets and more modern museums. It has its Gothic cathedral with a night watchman, the Olympic Museum at Ouchy, the Plateforme 10 cluster by the station and the strange, memorable Collection de l'Art Brut. Both are covered in two or three days.

Lausanne is the place for a night out. The university and EPFL students fill the clubs and late bars in the old warehouses of the Flon at weekends, and the Ouchy waterfront fills up on summer evenings, though weeknights are quiet and drinks are costly.

In Colmar the evening is the dinner: a few wine bars and terraces around Petite Venise, then quiet streets and hardly any clubs. Anyone after more takes the train to Strasbourg.

Lausanne has the bigger scenery. The French Alps rise straight out of the lake opposite, the UNESCO-listed Lavaux terraces run east of town, and within about an hour you can be hiking or skiing at Villars, Les Diablerets or Glacier 3000, or out on the Jura ridges.

Colmar's landscape is gentler but close at hand: vineyard paths between wine villages, the rounded, forested Vosges along the Route des Crêtes and flat cycling country on the plain. It is at its best in autumn, and a car helps a great deal.

Both are first-rate bases, and the difference is in how you travel. Colmar's best outings are the wine villages a few kilometres apart, Eguisheim, Riquewihr and Kaysersberg, plus the castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg on its ridge, and all of them are easiest by car or bike. Strasbourg is about half an hour away by train and Basel under an hour. Freiburg and the Kaiserstuhl wine slopes are an easy drive across the Rhine, so in a day you can be in Germany or Switzerland.

Lausanne's trips run on the train and the lake boats, with no car needed. Vevey, Montreux and Chillon are along the shore, and Geneva, Bern and Fribourg are all within about an hour. Gruyères and Murten make classic Swiss days out, and boats cross the lake to Évian on the French side.

Both work well with children, but in different ways. Colmar itself is small and flat, with boat rides through Petite Venise and storks on the roofs. Its big attractions are out of town and need a car: the macaques and eagle show at Kintzheim, the stork park at Hunawihr and Europa-Park across the Rhine.

Lausanne keeps more within the city, with the hands-on Olympic Museum, the aquarium-vivarium, the Sauvabelin animal park and lookout tower, and paddle steamers on the lake. Its steep streets are hard going with a pushchair, though, and family meals are expensive.

Lausanne is easier to get around without a car. The m2 metro climbs the steep city from the lake to the upper town, buses and boats fill the gaps, and the Swiss rail network reaches almost every outing.

Colmar's flat centre is a pleasure on foot, and trains to Strasbourg and Mulhouse are quick. Beyond those lines, buses to the wine villages and the Vosges are thin, which is why most visitors hire a car or a bicycle.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Lausanne has a slightly wider range. Rue de Bourg has Swiss watches, jewellery and chocolatiers, there are international names around Saint-François and chains in the Flon.

Colmar is about taking Alsace home: wine bought from producers, Soufflenheim pottery, kougelhopf moulds, printed table linen and food gifts from the covered market. Its Christmas markets are the high point of the year.

Colmar costs much less. It is priced like a French provincial town, with reasonable set lunches and cheap or free tastings, and only hotel rooms in summer and at Christmas become a real expense. Staying in a nearby village helps with that.

Lausanne is expensive in the Swiss way, from rooms to a simple lunch. Budget travellers there live on supermarket picnics and free lakeside walks, and save a village caveau glass of Chasselas as a treat.

Lausanne has much more on stage. The Béjart Ballet Lausanne and the Prix de Lausanne put dance first, the Théâtre de Vidy is known internationally for contemporary work, and the opera and chamber orchestra run full seasons. Montreux Jazz is a short train ride along the lake.

Colmar has a small Italian-style theatre and visits from the Opéra national du Rhin. Otherwise its offer depends on festival weeks, the classical festival in July and jazz in autumn, and serious performances mostly mean going to Strasbourg or Basel.

Lausanne is better set up for a spa stay. The grand lakeside hotels have large spas, the region has wellness retreats, and thermal springs at Yverdon-les-Bains and Lavey-les-Bains are within an hour by train.

Colmar offers calm rather than treatments: hotel spas, canal-side evenings once the day-trippers leave, and slow walks through the vines. That suits a restful few days, but there is no thermal water.